In the wake of the Equinox move on Citadel, analysts have suggested that OZ was lagging its peers in the copper sector due to a lack of clearly defined growth projects.

But on a site visit to the company’s Prominent Hill mine in South Australia last week, Mr Burgess said he would not be rushed into doing a deal because of competitors’ actions.

“We’ve got a methodology of looking at things, progressing it through the process and making sure that it is going to add value," Mr Burgess told The Australian Financial Review.

“If we start taking short cuts, that’s when we make mistakes, that’s when we destroy value," he said.

“So I don’t feel under any pressure. I don’t lie awake at night thinking, ‘oh my goodness, I’ve got to go out and do something’ and I’m not getting shareholder pressure either. [Shareholders] are saying they’re happy with the way we’re doing things and they’d like us to continue in that vein."

Mr Burgess joined OZ in August last year, shortly after the company had to sell off all its assets bar Prominent Hill and some exploration ground in Cambodia to repay its debtors and avoid collapse.

The sale left the miner with about $1 billion in cash and last December, Mr Burgess gave himself until the end of 2010 to use that money on an ­acquisition.

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But as that self-imposed deadline approaches, it appears unlikely that he will achieve his goal. On the site visit to Prominent Hill, he spoke of the difficulties his business development team had encountered in identifying assets that matched OZ’s criteria.

“There’s lots of things out there to look at, but mostly they don’t add the value we’re looking for," he said.

The most significant investment OZ has made since Mr Burgess joined is the $100 million it paid for a 19.7 per cent stake in copper explorer
Sandfire Resources
in July. But Mr Burgess has played down suggestions that a takeover bid for Sandfire is imminent, likening OZ’s involvement with the company to “a marathon, not a sprint".

“Nothing’s really changed on that at all. It was an investment we made because we wanted to be part of this," Mr Burgess said. “We wanted to make sure we didn’t wake up one morning and read that someone else had done what we’ve done . . . We can see how it develops over time."

Comparing the exploration potential of Sandfire’s Doolgunna copper and gold project in Western Australia with Prominent Hill, Mr Burgess said he was “really comfortable" that OZ’s money was better spent on its own operation.

“My preference is to put $50 million to $60 million a year into exploration here [rather] than perhaps putting [that amount] into buying more shares in something like that."

Mr Burgess would not confirm that OZ had run the ruler over Citadel. But he indicated that a lack of familiarity with Saudi Arabia, where Citadel’s projects were located, might have prevented OZ from pursuing a deal.